Marje and Ed Shook stand near the sugar house at their farm in Madison Township.

For decades, Ed Shook and his wife, Marje, have watched maple syrup production evolve in Ohio.

Their business, Wheat-n-Sweet, is approaching its 40-year anniversary of producing and selling maple syrup.

Beginning each Presidents Day weekend, the Shooks start drawing as much as 6,000 gallons of sap from hard maple trees on their 30-acre farm at 7711 Ross Road in Madison Township. Before the end of March, the Shooks boil down the sap to as much as 150 gallons of pure maple syrup.

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It's not the same syrup found at Walmart.

"What you get in the store is entirely different," Ed said. "That's just brown sugar, flavoring and that sort of thing."

Jen Freeman, a former president of the Ohio Maple Producers Association, said most big-brand "table-blended" syrups are made with corn syrup, not maple syrup, which is why they're cheaper. She said more Northeast Ohioans are dabbling into maple syrup production themselves.

Freeman's company and store, Richard Maple Products in Chardon, sells not only its own maple syrup but also equipment for maple syrup production.

"We see more and more people who want to buy new taps," Freeman said, referring to the tubes used to take sap out of trees. Taps rarely ever need to be replaced, Freeman said.

"So it either means they're new (producers) or they're expanding their business," Freeman said of tap purchases.

Les Ober of the Ohio State University Extension office in Geauga County calls many of these small start-ups "backyard producers," and they are not typically counted when the U.S. Department of Agriculture publishes its census on farmers every five years.

Ohio produced 1 million gallons of maple syrup in 2012. That set Ohio in fourth place behind Vermont, New York and Maine.

The Shook farm uses 400 taps, and Ed and Marje are its only two farmers.

"It is labor-intensive and that is why a lot of people wouldn't even consider doing it," Ed said.

Outside of extracting and boiling sap, the Shooks cut as many as eight large trees into firewood to power their boiler. Three times throughout the season, the Shooks filter the sap or syrup through a blanket of orlon fabric to remove any sediments and after the season, the couple clean and pump water through their network of taps.

It isn't a lucrative business, but it makes a successful post-retirement job, Ed said.

"In a given year, we will sell all that we make," Ed said. "We seldom have syrup at the end of the season."

Like everything in farming, technology has changed a lot in maple syrup production. Nearly 40 years ago, the Shooks strapped buckets onto trees underneath a dripping hole of sap. Now the sap runs through a network of hundreds of tubes to a single storage container.

"It's just as much work, but it spreads the work out over the whole year," Ed said. "You have to be working on it year-round."

Technology also has introduced new, lighter-colored syrup because boiling can now take place earlier in the season. Years ago, the Shooks only produced a medium and dark grade of syrup, but now they have three grades. The sugar content and density are all the same. Taste and color is the only difference, Ed said.

"We always say it is like cheese," Marje said. "Some people like a really strong cheese and some people like mild swiss."

Ed and Marje sell their maple syrup at their farm, as well as Wayman's Fresh Vegetable Stand in Madison Village and M & W Bulk Foods in Middlefield.

They also sell maple syrup and wheat weavings Marje designs and produces at festivals. Wheat weavings are wall decorations made of wheat straw and are the second half of Wheat-n-Sweet's business. Marje crafts as many as 50 designs a year. She is also a board member and instructor for the National Association of Wheat Weavers.

"The two products work well together," Ed said. "One is light and easy to transport and the other is bulkier and heavier."